The Effects of Reading Programme on Foreign Language Students Writing Performance

Ivana Cimermanová, Prešovská univerzita v Prešove, ID Výzvy2017-549;    Abstract: Writing is acquired as the last in mother tongue. Concerning EFL it is frequently evaluated as the most difficult skill and still it is the skill that is least systematically developed skill. There are several reasons to explain it – writing is time demanding (and also to evaluate it as well), evaluation is subjective to certain time, certain degree of metacognition, creativity and autonomy is expected and generally writing development is much slower process compared to three other skills. Research investigated elementary school learners (n=152) included in reading programme lasted for one year and development of their writing skills. The data were collected from their reading journals (that included also the reflective part) and language proficiency tests written in eight months apart. The research was conducted at three Slovak elementary school. The results of pre and post language proficiency tests show that reading input is beneficial to the development of writing. Learners have improved in writing, a significant progress (at α=.5) was recorded by the 5^th and 6^th grade learners. As to the journal records analysis the most important changes were recorded in the length of sentences and the number of adjectives used.

Key words: writing, research, elementary school, statistics